@karlknow - Guessing is never required. Each puzzle has one and only one solution, and each is solvable using only the clues given.

@deborah - We are looking into adding an option for players to select only puzzles of a particular difficulty level. It's hard to make that work within the confines of competitive play but we're working on it. That said, don't give up on the new puzzles just yet - most aren't that much harder, they just require new forms of deduction you may not yet be accustomed to.

I like the new puzzles, although I also agree that some of them are more difficult. I spent over four hours on one (I just hated the idea of losing 100% solve rate) and had come to the conclusion that there was just no correct answer. After I walked away for a while and came back I was able to solve it.

What really helps is paying close attention to the clues that indicate precedence along with the increment number -- for example 'Volcano X erupted 9 years before Volcano Y.' If the increment is 3 years, you enter 3 Xs in opposite sides for each volcano. Very often those are the clues that help you solve a puzzle.

I like the new ones, especially the heavy use of the before/after and less/more style clues. Forces the player to use part of the clue and refer back to it as the puzzle fills out.

Haven't found one that requres guessing (yet?!) and I think the comment about puzzles having multiple solutions is in error. Newer ones are taking me longer in general due to the need to recheck the clues more. Plus I fell asleep doing some, and having resulting solve times like 38000 seconds doesn't help my average much...

Bocci, that's really funny! I haven't fallen asleep (yet) during a puzzle, but I have been interrupted (usually by my husband or the phone) and then forgotten that I had to finish one. I try to work these when no one else is at home, or it becomes almost impossible to stay focused.

I've set a ton of records on the new puzzles and never seen a name. I also suspect Guest is for an unregistered users. I also think there are an enormous number of different puzzles when you consider that different orders of the same clues create different puzzles for each set of clues. Perhaps all those Guest best times means they have finally fixed the records problem that I think they've had since I started. That or there are so many puzzles that you rarely see the same puzzle twice. Admin could clue us in on this....

It would be interesting to know if anyone has seen any record holder not Guest on a new puzzle...

Indeed it would be a sight to see since I have my doubts about the record-setting feature is enabled continuously. My reasoning is that we will be seeing at least a few names as the record-holders for the new puzzles among the vast set of new puzzles. Otherwise, one has to assume that there are a bunch of guest users who constantly out-perform any player and they are content to remain anonymous, which does not make any sense. My theory, for the new puzzles, is that after played for the first time, any new puzzle is sealed.

If each puzzle is locked after the first solution, we would expect to see some very high times, some in the thousands of seconds. We would expect to see few extremely fast times. Guest record holders could easily be players trying to figure out how to solve these more complex puzzles as we started doing before taking on userids to track our progress. It also seems to cast the site in a sinister light. The administration isn't at all sinister IMHO. It would be nice to see Admin weigh in on the facts here...